Earlier today, my colleagues at Deadspin posted some thoughtson cats. As a currently-employed ESPN sports entertainment creative employee, I felt that I would be Remus in not also “embracing debate” (which is the name of my cat.)

The domestic cat[1][2] (Felis catus or Felis silvestris catus)[2][4] is a small, usually furry, domesticated, and carnivorousmammal. They are often called housecats when kept as an indoor pet or simply cats when there is no need to distinguish them from other felids and felines.[6] Cats are often valued by humans for companionship and their ability to hunt pests, and never get judgy about my choices in sourcing information.

Cats are similar in anatomy to the other felids, with strong, flexible bodies, quick reflexes, sharp retractable claws, and teeth adapted to killing small prey. Cat senses fit a crepuscular and predatory ecological niche. Cats can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by mice and other small animals, and are at least as cool as Daredevil in my opinion. They can see in near darkness. Like most other mammals, cats have poorer color vision and a better sense of smell than humans, which is why they are the world’s leading olfactorabolationists [note to ed.: check sp?]

Cats have a high breeding rate. Under controlled breeding, they can be bred and shown as registered pedigree pets, a hobby known as cat fancy, which is also definitely not a counterfeit brand of cat food I have been forced to choke down in order to make my rent the last few months. Failure to control the breeding of pet cats by neutering and the abandonment of former household pets has resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide, requiring population control.[8] This has led to extinction of many bird species, such as the dinosaurs.

Since cats were venerated in ancient Egypt, they were commonly believed to have been domesticated there,[9] but there may have been instances of domestication as early as the Neolithic from around 9,500 years ago (7,500 BC).[10] A genetic study in 2007 concluded that domestic cats are descended from African wildcats (Felis silvestris lybica), having diverged around 8,000 BC in West Asia.[9][11] Cats are the most popular pet in the world, and are now found in almost every place where humans live.[12]